john boehner said he will block it if the filibuster is curtailed. all right. let's start at the most basic principle level. before we get into the weeds of senate procedure and the current reform rules on the table, i would like to put forth the proposition that the filibuster itself is a ridiculous thing that we shouldn't have and that if we -- we have come to see it as normal and it's become normalized because it's existed for a while, there's something to say about tradition, but if we had this stipulation in any other area of democratic governance, we would blanch. for instance, if egypt says you can only be elected president of egypt with 60% of the vote or if we said here in the united states, you can only be elected president with 60% of the vote, imagine the absolute chaos that would throw american democratic processes into. as the man who wrote the book literally, defending the filibuster, make the case why we should have this institution at all. >> first off, will et me observe that we do elect presidents with less than 50% majority, even presidents